


Sealskin

by Corvid_Knight



Series: Fantasystuck [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fantasy AU, M/M, awkward first meetings, jake pls, my tumblr is knight-of-heart-and-art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 12:36:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13524405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: Jake tries to return a coat he happened to find, with some...interesting results. As in, he's now engaged to a selkie and a fae prince. He's not sure how to handle this.(Backstory on how Jake met Dirk and Cronus.)





	Sealskin

You just wanted to return a lost item of clothing, and of _course_ it isn't that simple. 

First off, you've no idea who the fur coat belongs to. It's too large for you, it's heavy and the fur is snowy and soft and smells like clean salt water and the wind off the ocean, but that doesn't help with identification. It looks like it cost a pretty penny, though, and you intend to see it returned to its proper owner. 

In the two days that you try to think of exactly how you'll do that, you find yourself sleeping with it by your bed, then giving up and using it as a blanket. The owner might not be happy with you for that, but it's extremely warm, and you dream of flying when you sleep wrapped in it.

(...or perhaps the dreams are of swimming, darting through the deep water in pursuit of shimmering shining things. You're not sure.) 

Your cousin's the one who suggests the solution to your dilemma. He might be not-quite-ten, but he's a bright boy, in regards to most things. He tells you that mages and sorcerers can find anything, Jake, _anything,_ and gives you a wide bucktoothed grin. For that bit of wisdom you give him the cactus you've just finished replanting in the sky-blue flowerpot you know he's liked since you made it, and start thinking about what kind of magic-talented people are available to you. 

Since you have a distinct lack of funds, the choice isn't a difficult one. The lady of shadows who lives by the edge of town and takes in every stray cat that sits outside her house and laments to her agrees to trade half your stock of catmint for a tracing spell. She hands you a stone and tells you to turn until it grows warm in your hand, then go the way you're facing. _The enchantment only lasts a few days,_ she says, and you thank her and reassure her that it won't take you days. 

Actually, it takes perhaps an hour and a half before you track down the correct house and stand outside the door. You almost forget to slip the coat off and drape it over one arm as if you weren't wearing it at all, before you knock. 

The man that answers is probably not human. You have little experience with fae or other magical creatures, but his eyes are wide and violet, absolutely stunning against skin the color of good dark honey. Pure humans don't have eyes that color. His white shirt might be plain but it's definitely not poorly made or cheap, and his teeth are the sharp points of a meat-eater as he smiles at you and runs one hand through wet black hair. 

"Uh..." Gods, he's lovely. What were you here for again? "Sorry, hello, I believe I've found something that belongs to you!" And you hold out the coat, offering it up with both hands. 

He doesn't take it immediately, which is...strange. Stranger still is the look that passes across his face—would that be fear? It's replaced with confusion, and then, as he looks up to meet your eyes, what looks like delight. "Dirk?" he calls, looking back over his shoulder. (His voice is as attractive as the rest of him, rougher than the honey of his skin but still somehow smooth, deeper than yours even though this man is slim and barely a head taller than you.) "Dirk, chief, you need to get your ass out and see who's brought me something back." 

"I just wanted to bring your coat back," you protest as the lovely man wraps an arm around your shoulders and guides you through the door. (He still hasn't taken said coat out of your arms, and you can't help but hug it nervously to your chest.) "There really doesn't need to be a fuss—" 

"Cronus?" A second man steps through the door into the next room, and you abruptly lose all ability to do anything, including breath. If the man who answered the door—Cronus—is lovely, this one is...oh, gods, you would gladly die, looking at him. He's shirtless, pale-skinned, all angles and planes that fall together into a body that makes you long to see what his loose trousers hide. His hair is golden waves pulled back into a loose ponytail, wisps escaping to frame his angular face and accent his amber eyes. 

He's _smiling_ at you. His mouth quirks up at one corner, and you can't think. 

"Babe, shit, you're—" Cronus begins, in a tone that suggests alarm even though there's obviously no reason to worry with this beautiful golden being in the vicinity. 

The aforementioned beautiful being looks down at himself, sighs, very calmly says, "Fuck. In my defense, I wasn't expecting a human," and...does something. You aren't sure what. It somehow lessens the aura of beauty around him, though, and you remember what lungs are again. "Sorry." 

"I'm, um." Words are a bit harder. "Hello." 

"He's got my coat," Cronus points out, and steps back quickly as you try to offer it to him again. "Hold up, kiddo, I think you'd better hold onto that for a minute." 

The other one—Dirk? You think Cronus called him Dirk, although your memory's abruptly a bit hazy on the events of the last few minutes'—tilts his head, examining you with eyes that might be made of molten gold. "He _does_ have your coat." 

"Should I take it?" 

"I mean..." Dirk shrugs, mouth twisting up into an amused smile. "He _is_ cute. But then again, I don't think he knows exactly what he's doing." 

"That's quite true," you feel the need to add. "I'm. Erm. Confused." 

The two of them trade glances that seem to exchange a wealth of information that you're not privy to, and then Cronus steps back to stand next to Dirk, facing you. 

"I'm—" Dirk begins, then shakes his head, takes a deep breath, and starts again. "My name is Dirk Strider, prince of the Summer Fae, currently in chosen exile. This—" 

"My name is Cronus Ampora." The dark-haired man looks both determined and afraid, and you're not sure why. "Consort—" 

" _Husband,_ " Dirk corrects gently. 

"...yeah. Husband of the prince of the Summer Fae. Child of the sea, who the sea's disowned for losing half my nature." He huffs, gesturing at the coat in your arms with the hand that's not clutching Dirk's. "Which you're kinda holding." 

"Uh..." You're still lost, not that you intend to say that. Dirk's fae, alright, you don't—

Wait. _Wait._

He just told you his name. A prince of the fae freely told you his name, without coercion or trickery. 

"...oh, dear." You hear the woefully inadequate words slip out of your mouth. 

Dirk's eyes widen, and even though he's a good five feet away from you it's only a heartbeat before he's standing at your side, taking hold of your arm and offering support that you may actually need. "Are you all right?" he asks, and you don't know what to make of the genuine-seeming concern in his voice. 

"I don't _want_ your name!" It comes out as an embarrassing almost-wail, and you try to cover your face with your hands. This leads to your remembering that you're _still_ holding the fur coat. Without thinking you raise it enough to bury your face in it, taking a calming breath of its salty scent. This muffles your voice a bit when you continue. "I'm no one, why in the bloody fucking _hell_ would you give me that?" 

"...mostly because you just came in and proposed to my husband." Dirk's voice is calm and full of amusement, but those words still snap your head up out of the soft fur so fast it actually makes you dizzy. 

_I've offended one of the fair folk,_ you think. _Gods, I'm dead._

He's smiling. It's reassuring. Cronus is beside him, and he just looks excited. 

Again, you hold out the coat. " _Please_ just take this and let me go home." Your voice is shaking and you can't do anything about that. "My apologies, I'm so very sorry, I swear I'll make amends in any way you want me to..." _Please don't turn me into an animal. Or kill me. I don't want to die!_

Dirk and Cronus exchange another look. Then the former pulls you into the other room, giving you a gentle push towards a chair and taking a seat himself. 

"So," he says, leaning towards you a little and hurriedly reversing the movement as you can't help but flinch. "Cronus could take his coat back from you, but then you'd need to either stay here, or he'd have to go home with you." 

" _Why_?" You don't understand anything. 

"I'm a selkie," Cronus offers. "That's—" 

"...I know what it is, thank you." That may have been rude. You sigh and adjust the heavy coat in your lap—that _is_ sealskin, isn't it? Gods, you can't believe you didn't realize that. And if a mortal returns a selkie's coat, it _is_ considered as a binding proposal of marriage. Oh, _dear._ "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...um. Intrude?" 

"You haven't." They both say it at precisely the same moment. It's Cronus who continues. "Sweetheart, if I'm going to be bound to another lover, you seem like a pretty damn good option. Attractive, obviously a good person, hot, pretty, lovely—" 

"Cro, stop. You're going to make the poor human implode." Dirk stifles a laugh. 

" _Thank_ you." How on earth do you stop blushing? "Dirk..." 

"Yes?" 

"You're not...upset about this?" 

He just shrugs, glancing over at Cronus before focusing on you. "I mean, if you try to take him from me against his will, I'm more than willing to call all the forces I have at my disposal down on your head, but if you just want to date him, marry him, love him?" Another shrug, and a smile that almost sets you at ease again. "You gain two partners, rather than one. Assuming you'd like me as well as him." 

"Yes." Oh, gods, you didn't mean to say that out loud, but you might as well commit. "Um. If you're sure you're all right with that state of affairs?" Okay, so that does not qualify as committing, but you're still rattled. 

"Absolutely all right." Dirk nods. 

Cronus gives you a sharp-toothed grin and shifts to the edge of his chair, leaning forward to take your hand and raise it to his lips. (You don't flinch this time.) His skin is cool when he presses a kiss against the back of your hand. "Keep the coat," he says softly. "Least until you work out what the hell you're getting into. We don't want to trap you in something, do we?" 

"Uh..." You're not sure what the right answer is, and it's difficult to think anyway when he's holding your hand oh-so-gently. But you do think of something that it's very important you say. "...my name is Jake. Jake English." 

"Jake," Cronus repeats, and you can see Dirk mouthing your name behind him. "English. Good name." 

You don't know how to answer _that,_ either, but you smile at him. 

You leave several hours later with the coat around your shoulders and an order for half a dozen potted rosemary seedlings in your pockets. The next time you stay longer, and eventually there is a night when you don't leave at all, but sleep in the spare room. After that, there's a morning when you wake up with the fae sprawled out across half the bed and the selkie curled up as close as he can possibly get to your side, and—months further along—mornings when you wake up in a tangle of long limbs and discarded clothes wound up in the blankets. By that time the coat stays hung by the door, owned by all of you equally, and you've moved everything you own that isn't plants to their house, and converted your smaller house to a shop where you sell plants that may or may not carry the ambient magic of your partners. 

All you meant to do was return a coat. 

You're not sure you really ever manage to do that, but this is a _much_ better outcome.

**Author's Note:**

> this was so much fun
> 
> enjoy the extra info for this AU that was completely unnecessary but also funny as fuck to me


End file.
